5 Ways MoviePass Could And Should Have Improved Its $9.95/Month Rollout

Now that the MoviePass team has had two months to digest the aftermath of their $9.95/month plan announcement, I hope they’ll have done a thorough post-mortem analysis to understand where they went wrong and how they can improve their service offering.

The results of that August 15th announcement, which promoted a drop in the subscription price for the movie-ticket-a-day service from as much as $50.00 to a flat $9.95/month, have been both a blessing and a curse for MoviePass.

A blessing because the promotion succeeded beyond the company’s wildest expectations in terms of publicity and new customer acquisitions. According to a note I received from MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, “The announcement was the No. 1 trending consumer news article in the world and our membership grew by 2300% in six weeks.”

That 2300% growth in the MoviePass membership ranks amounted to over 400,000 new customers. And that was the curse. MoviePass was in no way prepared for such a dramatic boost in business, and they failed in pretty much every way possible to meet the demand. Many customers paid their sign-up fee months ago but have still yet to see a single movie using the service because they haven’t received their membership cards, which were initially promised to arrive within five to seven business days from the date of purchase. Many others have received their cards but have been stymied by the company’s byzantine ticket purchase and delivery system. And many others have complained of being completely ignored by the company’s customer service department.

Although I’ve written several not-so-glowing articles about MoviePass (and, to be fair, a few positive ones), I remain a fan of the concept. I believe that, in success, the service can be a boon to theater exhibitors, small distributors, and independent film producers, all of whom could use a break in this era of decline for the movie business. So I’ve provided below a few suggestions as to how MoviePass could have, and still can, do a better job of serving customers.

1. Do pre-announcement market tests to estimate customer response. It's ironic that a company that's touting its ability to deliver quality data about moviegoers to advertisers did such a woefully inadequate job of understanding its own moviegoing customers. MoviePass bungled its rollout mostly because it announced its new pricing plan without a clue as to how many people would respond. This problem could have easily been avoided if the company would have done some small, targeted market tests. Facebook or Google could have cheaply and conveniently facilitated some geo-focused, niche-targeted promotions to small but statistically significant numbers of prospective customers, the results of which could have been examined to guide the larger national launch.

2. Streamline the ticket purchase process. Another problem with MoviePass has been its complicated, cumbersome, and burdensome approach to getting movie tickets into subscribers' hands. The process requires the subscriber to have their MoviePass membership/debit card in one hand, their active cell phone with the app installed in the other, and reliable mobile reception at the moment of purchase confirmation, all while they're located within 100 yards of the theater with firm plans to enter the theater in no more than 30 minutes. Then, after the subscriber performs this juggling act and selects the movie, the theater and the showtime, the system must load the proper amount of money onto the card so that the purchase can be made at the box office.

I gather that MoviePass has set up this byzantine process in order to limit fraud and unauthorized sharing of the service with non-subscribers, but it simply has too many potential points of failure that can ruin the moviegoing experience. While I've heard from several very happy subscribers who tell me they've never had a problem, I've also heard from quite a few others who say they've encountered complete system failure time and again, which has left them at the theater without a ticket (unless they go out-of-pocket to purchase one with their own money. This sort of failure is unacceptable. There are all sort of ways to buy a movie ticket, from online services to pre-paid gift cards, from free screening passes to credit cards at a kiosk, and I've never heard of any of these methods failing even once. MoviePass should be equally—that is, 100%—reliable.

3. Make e-ticketing available to everyone. MoviePass has actually made it possible to circumvent many of the potential pitfalls in its process by offering e-ticketing—in other words, simple advance reservations of movie tickets—for some of its customers at some theaters in a few markets. But why e-ticketing should be limited to only Goodrich Quality Theaters, Studio Movie Grill and MJR Theatres--theaters that must comprise a tiny fraction of the nation's screens, is a mystery. MoviePass would go a long way toward solving its problems if it would extend its e-ticketing capability to as many theaters as possible.

4. Make nice with AMC Theaters. Within hours of MoviePass's big announcement, AMC Theatres came out swinging, saturating the media with its threats to avoid honoring MoviePass membership cards. AMC's posturing generated tremendous negative publicity for MoviePass, raising the question of whether the company would survive, and no doubt putting some prospective subscribers off from joining. This is another problem that could have easily been avoided. MoviePass had previously been a partner with AMC, even enjoying privileged access to customer data from AMC's Stubs loyalty program. MoviePass should have known that AMC was going to have concerns and should have taken aggressive steps to address them before making its big, public move.

5. Stop making empty promises. Perhaps the gravest damage MoviePass has inflicted upon itself has been its failure to honor the promises it has made to customers. My own personal experience with this is illustrative. On handing over my $9.95 payment to MoviePass I received a promise that the debit card would be in my mailbox in five to seven days. Ten days later I received a form email that said I would have to wait an additional two to three weeks, but the card would assuredly be in my hands by then. Nearly three weeks later, I received another email that said I would have the card within five to seven more days. That deadline also came and went. This is business 101: you don't overpromise and underdeliver. Unfortunately, MoviePass has been training customers not to believe what it says. And as the late, great Maya Angelou once wrote, "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

In spite of all this, I believe MoviePass still stands a good chance of succeeding if they commit to quickly and reliably correcting their errors. I believe CEO Mitch Lowe when he says, "We have secured additional processing facilities to get cards out to members faster, tripled our customer support team and enhanced our support tools to make it easier to respond in a timely manner."

I believe MoviePass can dig itself out of the hole it has created for itself, and henceforward sustain itself as a quality, reliable service worthy of customer trust. And I sincerely hope it actually does.

I’ve been doing business in China since 1987, where I have produced movies and TV and advised major Chinese companies like China Film Group, Shanghai Media Group and CCTV. I've also been a consultant to entertainment and non-entertainment companies alike for more than 25 ye...